Home

Friday, May 27, 2011

Bad Mouse, Bad Mouse! ... Or the "Step by Step of My Quilt Repair"

Hello, hello everyone! I'm Wendy from Why Knot? and when I saw that Madame Samm was asking for tutorials, I dared to peek my nose outta my little corner of the world and thought to myself "Why Knot offer to share this tutorial with Stash Manicure's amazing readers?" Good thing I hadn't gotten out of bed yet when I received her reply that morning, otherwise I probably would've been flat out on the floor! How ironic that I, a mouse of a person, have this tutorial to share ... but seriously, I couldn't pass up the opportunity in these times of saving our pennies, nickels and dimes ... So, Madame Samm, and all of you amazing readers, I humbly thank you for the honor of posting here today!!

Has one of you precious quilt ever unintentionally come in contact with a dog ... or a mouse, or a whole family of mice? Or, as our weather systems seem to be so consistently inconsistent, sustain tornado damage, flood stains or wildfire scorches?

Well, I recently had a call from a lady desperately seeking someone to repair a damaged quilt. Her sister had proudly presented it to her as a gift and within a week, someone left the door open for the family dog to access the room with said prized quilt. Oops!Needless to say, the lady has not yet told her sister what happened to this very dear present. When she called me, in December, I told her I’d happily help her, if she could find matching fabric for which I could make repairs. I then directed her to my very friendly LQS shopkeeper with her damaged prize.

Well, the same lady has called me again, five month's later, very proudly stating she's found matching material and asked if I was still interested in helping her get this precious quilt repaired. I repeated that I would need to see the damage first, but that I could give it my best. I did mention that depending on damage, costs might be a little high and, she rushed to say that at this point if it cost $1,000, she didn’t care.

﻿

I share this story with you because as I was talking with a friend about this story, she asked if it was possible to repair damage to a quilt as I described. It got me to thinking that while most all of us share tips on creating quilts, I haven’t seen too many posts on repair work. Follow me? J So ....

A while back, I had this quilt brought to me with “mouse damage” and, (this was a year before blogging even entered my brain's realm of thought) though I was pretty happy taking on this challenge, I wanted proof of what the quilt looked like before I began repairs and what it would look like after my repairs. (If this sounds like I was trying to cover my hiney, you’re absolutely right J) Okay, enough with my words, I'll let my pictures speak for me now:

This is mouse damage from the front side … note binding, batting, and hole through to the backside.

This is the damage from the backside of quilt.

After carefully removing all stitching in damaged areas, I squared off material to be cut and removed. In doing so, you can see more extensive damage to the batting.

I repeated the same steps with the batting since damage encompassed a couple of areas. You will note on the backside of the quilt only a small portion was damaged so I carefully cut out the chewed up section so I could replace with a smaller piece of matching material. Also, because the backing was not pieced, there was no easy “designation” of where to cut and piece a repair, so I chose to use a patch here instead of making the repair look so obvious on the back.

If you look closely, you will see that I cut a matching patch for the hole and used matching thread to zig-zag stitch the repair on the back … looks a little rough right now, but wait, it gets better!

Once the backing was patched I cut a piece of batting to replace that which I removed and stitched it in place, also with a zig-zag stitch. Next was the trickiest part in making the repair look good …

Using a matching rectangle of fabric, I first sewed the left and right sides to the border. You can probably notice the fading difference of where the seams join the two pieces of fabric. Once the side seams were made, I joined the light blue border to the darker blue border. I then added fabric to the binding section and completed the repair with stippling to match that which was done in the rest of the border.

Front side. For reference purposes, I marked the repaired section with pencil and quarter-inch marker.

Back side of quilt. Seriously J repair work can be done ... this was my very first repair job. J lol

Thank you for stepping through this repair with me. Maybe this little tutorial will help save you a dime, nickel, and penny by making a repair yourself before sending the pretty away to someone like me, or gifting same precious “damaged” quilt to your dog’s house.

I will post pictures of the doggie damaged quilt once the quilt is repaired on my blog over at Why Knot? so please be sure to check back in with me to see how I make out repairing precious pup's damage :)

Next time, ask yourself "Why Knot?" and try it yourself ... you just might be surprised!

Wendy

Editors note....

Thanks to Wendy for this amazing post...OK< I don't believe we have ever had this topic...sew be forewarned, mice, rats, dogs...OH MY...lol Wendy has the band-aid....lol( or rather the stitch, patch, finesse..you know what I mean) lol

And our winner.....

DEBBIE M

#41

Congrats my dear...

please send me your addy...

Thanks to all who entered

and left great messages for Wendy...

OHHHH a GIVEAWAY TOO..look YOUR very own copy of a TRAVEL guide, it was well put together. KUDOs to Thanks to Michele, our new sponsor..all kinds of info for sew many who travel, listing of all fabric shops.....and you know I always add a few extras...

Sew be a follower, leave a nice comment for Wendy..draw will be tomorrow...

70 comments:

Wendy!!! You are amazing! I love this tutorial, thank you!! I purchased a pink quilt from the flea market last summer and all the batting is missing or very thin. Now I think I know what to do to help my beauty. BUT you might be getting an email from me for some advice!!!!

That goes right along with what I was thinking about yesterday. I have a quilt that has been my bedspread for probably 10 years now. It is getting a little worn looking, no holes or visible wear, just limp, losing color, it just looks tired. It has sentimental value, it's the first quilt I hand quilted all by myself so I's not ready to let it become the picnic or dragged around quilt yet. What should I do with it? Should I recover it? Or buck up and let it go downhill. What does everyone do with old quilts that have memories but are really not worth perserving? Anyway, thanks for the repair tutorial. Good information, and makes a lot of sense. Good luck with the dog chewed quilt. I'm impressed that you take the time to repair like that. Thanks.

We repair a lot of damaged quilts (mostly by dogs) - the key you mentioned - amount of damage and if you can get exact or replaceable fabrics without it looking 'patched'. Very nice (and NEW) topic well covered. Thank you for sharing.

Wonerful job Wendy! So pleased to have seen your tutorial here... it gives one a whole different outlook to the 'old hopeless' quilts that become our favorites and we can't bring ourselves to get rid of them.

I repaired one if my great grandmothers quilts years and years ago. The bindin had all worn away so 'stitched' a new one on!! That was before I knew how to quilt!! I need to do it over again. I have since repaired a few other quilt/ blanket treasures for others!!

Great info, thank you. I can add a tip: if the fabric us too old or unusual to find matching fabric ... Get some of the sheets of fabric that can go through a printer (for labels or photos etc) and photocopy a piece of the fabric from an undamaged section if the quilt, and you gave now created a spare piece of fabric!

What a wonderful tutorial, especially for those who like to pick up old antique store/garage sale quilts!

I'm a follower (don't know which computer I last used for commenting, since I use 3 and my IP address might not match up...just sayin'). I move a lot and it would be nice to have a listing to show me where the nearest quilt stores are!

Good Morning Wendy...now really, if a dog can do that to a quilt...I think you have more serious problems that just worrying about your quilt...lol...What would he do with my bath towels...And mice..ok, I would be worried about those wee rodents too...eeekkkkkkkkkkkkkkkk.... YOU do a fab job..I can't even imagine where I would start...well cry first...and then send to you...

Wendy!!!!!! This is awesome! What the heck is it with dogs and quilts? Ours(well, he's my husband's when he does things like this) chewed up the corner of my very favorite quilt about a month ago and I've been sick about it. SO SO glad to know that all is not lost!Thanks so much!

I actually have a tutorial on this very subject: http://thequilter.blogspot.com/p/quilting-tutorials.htmlThe damage was done by a dog to a quilt I had made for my sister. Thank goodness I usually make very scrappy quilts with backings with busy fabrics.

Thanks for the great tutorial. Haven't had to do this kind of repair yet but now I know it can be done. Thanks for the wonderful giveaway. Not sure my husband would be thrilled with me having this book! :)

Great tutorial. I haven't had this issue yet, but "Murphy's Law" and "Life 101" have taught me that I probably will at some point. It's nice to have this knowledge filed away. Fun giveaway too. Thanks for the chance.

Great Post! And wonderful information. I pulled out a roll of batting from a cupboard recently to find it had been chewed upon by our house mouse. Needless to say, our housemouse is no more :-( and note to self...don't leave quilts stored without protective covering!

I surely do need the tutorial... in spite of many a cat roaming the house, mice are nesting under the fridge. It will take some days before they will find my attic studio with all the good and fabricky stuff they love to feed and play on =^{Thank you Wendy, for the band-aid at hand 8^}And of course I'm in for the travel guide, just want to have a look if my favorite shop is there too (and all the shops I have to visit whenever the opportunity knocks!)love from a rainy Amsterdam, Irene

Awesome repair job! I'm impressed and thank you for sharing how you did this. Thank you too for the opportunity to win the travel fabric book,I'd love to take that book on our excursions! You never know where I might be and what I might find. Thanks!!

Love the repair tutorial. Wendy is great and I love her blog. Nice to see her here. Finally, blogger is letting me comment. I haven't been able to for days. Great to see Cheryl from So Many Quilts So Little Time blog on the previous post. Another favorite blog of mine.

Wendy...that was an awesome post! You did a phenomenal job matching and hiding the repairs! Wow! I did a repair job to my DIL's quilt (she bought it at a quilt show....it's nice, but not a keepsake). Her dog had chewed a huge section of one corner off, about 6" into the quilt. She was going to toss it, but I said, "What if we just cut all four corners off, and rebind it?" She liked that idea, so that's what I did. It looks good, all the corners match, and it can still be used as a quilt on the sofa. Yay!

That was truly amazing. I have done some quilt repair work, mostly seams that came apart. But your tutorial showed that an extensive repair could be done. Thanks so much. I'm going to be checking your blog to see how the repair of the dog-eaten quilt comes out. I don't think I would be able to attempt that.

Wow, that is great work! I'm not sure I would tackle a repair...I would just be sullen and crabby and sad. But now that I see repairs can be accomplished, my outlook is completely different! Thanks for the information!

And I need that book. Daughter and I are road tripping this summer, and I would LOVE to stop at every quilt shop along the way!!!Julie in WAprjule at gmail.com

Thanks, Madame Samm. This was an awesome tutorial your guest blogger provided. I don't imagine I'll ever repair a quilt, but I at least have a name of someone I can go to for help. Appreciate the opportunity for the book giveaway. It looks like an interesting book.

Wendy what a great post! I have a few quilts that could use your expert hand. :) Unfortunately they're all too old and too frayed for any serious thoughts of repair but I'm going to remember this tip for when I need it later! blessings, marlene

Wonderful advice. My mother repaired a quilt once for an elderly neighbor that value it as family heirloom- made of heavy men's wool suiting and owned by a heavy smoker. It was difficult. You "did good". I already follow stashmanicure and have visited whyknot frequently - and learned about not using a knot!

This is a GREAT tutorial! Thank you! And timely, in a weird way. I had a DREAM last night that I ate holes out of a quilt my daughter & I made. We are selling it (in real life) to raise money for her to go to camp. In my dream, I looked at these HUGE holes I'd eaten (maybe I thought Cotton batting was cotton candy!) and wondered what I would do. I told my dd about it today & she asked, "Were you a rat?" Thankfully, I do NOT eat quilts in real life! LOL! But IF a mouse ever nibbles on one, I'll be coming back to this post!

Wow! I'm impressed! Especially since this was your first repair! I'm currently working on repairing my old childhood quilt my Nanny made for me ... nothing as bad as this but the edges of the binding are worn through so I'm just adding new binding over the existing ... I'm 50 years old so this is an antique lol Also, I inherited about 5-6 quilt tops from my Mama recently and have no idea how to quilt nor do I really want to learn ... repair work is more my speed. Do you know of anyone who could finish them for me? The hardest part is done ... they just need batting and backs and then quilting and they are in perfect condition.

HiThis is an awesome post. Thanks for sharing this great one.A great advantage of appliqué quilts is that they are inexpensive to make as material required is sourced from scrap like things, and the patterns are not defined or limited any mixture of patterns can result in a appliqué quilt.To know more advantages you can take a peek at from here- quilt types